Before we share the best bike stories from last week, we’d like to share a word from our sponsor: Pedal PT is southeast Portland’s, full-service and bike-friendly physical therapy headquarters with a specialty in bike fit and treatment of cycling injuries. Roll into their indoor bike parking at SE 25th and Clinton (and thank them for supporting BikePortland!).

LeMond vs. Armstrong: The only remaining American Tour de France champion lashes out at his supposed successor, calling Armstrong a “thug” who should have been able to place only “top 30 at best” and deserves to go to jail.

Bike-in cafe: Since time immemorial, the main problem with drinking coffee has been that it forces you to remove yourself from the seat of your bicycle. Finally, Zurich’s city council has solved this problem with a cafe that lets you wedge your front tire into a stationary stand and sip coffee while in the saddle.

Danish happiness: Scandinavian countries routinely top the list of the world’s happiest. But of them, Denmark seems to reliably be the best of the best. Why? HuffPo was more surprised than we were.

Distracted driving: The number of U.S. distracted driving fatalities is up 32 percent in two years as the rise of the smartphone takes a toll.

Safe passing law: A Rutgers study of the nation’s 20 “three foot” passing laws finds that they’re rarely enforced by cops (links to PDF), but ignores their frequent use in civil suits. (Oregon’s uniquely non-specific version requires enough space “prevent contact with the person operating the bicycle if the person were to fall into the driver’s lane.”)

Age-friendly cities: Andrew Price has a suggestion for the next time you go to a “family friendly” neighborhood: “Ask yourself, would your 13 year old kid or elderly granny on a walker have their freedom, and be happy there? We cannot ignore the problem, because we will all be elderly one day.”

Street standards: As Portland reconsiders its “level of service” policy, the speed-preserving metric used by city engineers to measure whether congestion will “degrade” a street, Streetsblog looks at the unappealing alternatives. For example, the “multimodal level of service” used in Florida analyzes developments that could increase transit ridership as bad because they lead to transit “crowding.” One consultant says the trick is for engineers to “stop fixating on this one metric.”

LeMond was saying that Armstrong was a top 30 finisher in stage races, not in the history of cycling. Finishing top 30 in a race means you are a good Lt. or a good water carrier. Top 30 in history is a pretty legendary list.

In fairness, they’re talking about mountain biking as well as road biking / commuting. If you’ve followed the evolution in MTB freeride / downhill at all, you know that they do some very very hairy stuff with serious consequences for failure…I actually think that for those riders, considering body armor is not over protective and is a reasonable suggestion.

Damn, LeBron! You hang with everyone, get the party started out in the streets, spend the day goofing off with a mad crowd, and then… just when the party could REALLY get started and invite everyone to your palatial estate? Nope. You close the gates and everyone sulks away. The hell, bro?

I know this goes into the “Language Matters” category but. . . “Ashlander killed: Bill Harriff, 69, was killed in Australia Oct. 22 after a car turned in front of his bike,” – was the car in neutral and roll into Mr. Harriff or did a driver turn in front of his bike? I don’t want to use my learning disability as a cop out, but I often take things pretty literally and am often worried when reading things like this of the movie; “Maximum Overdrive.” Just one more thing to watch out for on the road. I also realize in articles, to my understanding, the writer has to be careful how they word the incident to prevent criminalizing the person(s) involved before it has gone to court. Still, the car was tool – Col. Mustard in the library with the candlestick. John Doe around the corner with the car.

I completely agree with the defense of breaking the law. The law doesn’t protect you, safe choices do. If they disagree, then safety wins. We aren’t going to be able to change the mind of most of those entitled anti-bike people anyway. As long as we break the law for safety and not convenience, it’s not a big deal.

It’s time to pass Idaho Stop and decriminalize good and safe behavior!

One of the most common criticisms of safe passing laws is that they’re rarely enforceable, and I was appalled to hear that criticism coming from police officers’ associations in California. Not only do properly-constructed safe passing laws give courts another tool to punish offenders, but in the upcoming age of commoditized action video cameras we’ll see more and more bicyclists riding with the tools to help successfully enforce them.